[167] Armenians and merchants have
been synanomous words in India, for it was trade and commerce that attracted
the Armenians to this tropical country from their homes in the delectable
and snow-clad mountains of Armenia, from the days of remote antiquity.

Apart from eminent merchants, clever
diplomats, great soldiers, able governors and administrators, casters
of huge pieces of ordnance and manufacturers of firelocks, which, according
to Marshman, "were superior to the Tower-proof muskets of the Company",
the Armenians have given to India a poet of great merit whose fame spread
over Mohammedan India as a saint and a scholar, in the middle of the 17th
century, and to this day, his memory is revered and kept green by all
lovers of the noble, the beautiful and the sublime, not only in this country,
but in the countries where the charms of the beautiful language of the
immortal Ferdosi. Nizami, Saadi, Hafez, Jami and Khayyam, have captured
and captivated the imagination of millions.

But who was this remarkable poet whom
even the mighty Emperor Aurungzebe, the last of the Great Moguls, dreaded
and ultimately beheaded, as can be seen later on.

Let us first tap the European sources
for reliable information about this remarkable Armenian.

In the Oriental Biographical Dictionary
by Thomas William Beale, revised and enlarged in 1894 by that eminent
Persian scholar and historian. Henry George Keene,(*1) [168] M.R.A.S.,
we find the following authoritative account of Sarmad :— "Sarmad, the
poetical name of an Armenian merchant who came to India in the reign of
the Emperor Shah Jehan. In one of his journeys towards Thatta, he fell
so passionately in love with a Hindu girl(*2) that he became distracted
and would go about the streets naked. He was well versed in the Persian
language and was a good poet. In the beginning of the reign of Alamgir
[Aurungzebe] he was put to death on account of his disobeying the orders
of that Emperor, who had commanded him not to so about naked, This even
took place about the year 1661 (1072 A.H.). Some say that the real cause
of his execution was a Rubcu [quatrain] which he had composed, the translation
of which is: "The Mullas say that Mohammad entered the heavens, but Sarmad
says that the heavens entered Mohammad " His tomb is close to the Juma
Musjid at Delhi. Following in the footsteps of his compatriots, Sarmad
came out to India as a merchant from Persia by sea He set up in business
in the town of Thathah in Sindh, on the shores of the Indus, where his
business thrived exceedingly and he spent his days in comfort and peace.
During his sojourn in that city he contracted a close friendship with
a Hindu lad, Abhai Chand by name. This was the turning point in his life,
for unlike his calculating and serious minded countrymen, he neglected
his business, lost the equilibrium of his mind altogether and relinquishing
his life of comfort and peace, he lived thenceforth the austere life of
a naked Hindu fakir- (ascetic) and in this nude state he would go and
sit at the door of his beloved Abhai Chand. The following translation
of a distich shows the true sentiment of the distracted Sarmad : "I know
not if in this spherical old monastery [the world} My God is Abhai Chand
or some one else."
The boy's father seeing the earnestness of the ascetic, and the purity
of the attachment, allowed him to come to his house with [169] the result
that his son Abhai Chand became so much attached to Sarmad that he could
not bear to live apart from him. Soon after this, both left Thathah and
went to Delhi. Shah Jehan was then the Mogul Emperor of India. People
flocked round Sarmad and many found him to be a man of great sanctity
and supernatural powers.

The eldest son of the Emperor, the
unfortunate prince Dara Shikoh, whose devotion to Brahmanical dogmas and
theosophical beliefs is well known, was one of Sarmad's constant visitors
and staunch admirers. It was Dara Shikoh who brought the miraculous powers
of the saint, (Sarmad) to the notice of his august father, the Emperor
Shah Jehan. The prudent Emperor deputed Inayat Khan, one of the Umara
(grandees), of his Court to ascertain the real facts. The grandee visited
the naked saint and his report was most favorable if not reassuring. Prince
Dara Shikoh was one of the many disciples of Sarmad and the tutor had
predicted that Dara Shikoh would be the next Emperor after Shah Jehan.
Which prediction was not however fulfilled through the treachery of Aurengzebe
who ascended the throne of the mighty Moguls by first imprisoning his
father and then murdered his two brothers, Dara Shikoh and Murad Baksh.

Aurangzebe hated Sarmad for having
been a partisan of Dara Shikoh on whom he had promised to confer the throne
When Aurungzebe had usurped the throne, he taunted Sarmad about the succession
of his favorite disciple, Dara Shikoh to the throne, which he had promised
him. Sarmad calmly replied : “God has given him the eternal sovereignty
and my promise is not falsified." Needless to add that the Emperor was
greatly displeased and incensed with this sarcastic reply of the naked
(*3) saint and from that moment he decided to put an end to that poor
man's life. The favorable moment was [170] not long in coming, as Sarmad,
who was a Sufi,(*4) had expressed sentiments of a heretical nature in
the following distich, ridiculing the nocturnal journey of Mohammed to
heaven .
"The Mullas say that Abroad went to heaven.
Sarmad says that heaven came down to Ahmad".
According to the Sufis who believe in the unity of the creator and the
created, there is nothing objectionable in this doctrine, moreover as
in the opinion of certain Ulama, the Miraj, or the nocturnal journey of
Mahomed to heaven was allegorical and spiritual, but a fanatic and a bigot
like Aurungzebe, could not possibly tolerate such a blasphemy, open and
palpable, that was likely to shake the foundation of the Mohammedan faith.

The supreme moment had at last arrived
for Aurungzebe to wreak his vengeance on the harmless naked saint and
scholar and he immediately ordered his execution.
It is said that when the condemned man was being led away from the tribunal
to the place of execution, he uttered, ex tempore, 24 quatrains. The crowd
was so dense that one could pass through it with great difficulty.
When the executioner, a low caste man of the sweeper class, approached
him with his naked sword, he wanted, according to custom, to cover the
condemned man's head, but Sarmad hinted not to do it, then he smiled and
addressing the executioner said :—
"The friend with naked sword has now arrived
In whatever disguise thou mayst come, I recognize thee,
He also uttered the following distich :
“There was an uproar and we opened our eyes from the eternal sleep.
[171] Saw that the night of wickedness endured, so we slept again".

Aqil Khan Razi, the court chronicler
of Aurungzebe, writes that when the executioner was about to inflict the
fatal blow, Sarmad uttered :
"The nakedness the body was the dust of the road to the friend,
That too was severed, with the sword, from our head".
According to another version Sarmad uttered :
"My head was severed from the body by that flirt, who was my companion,
The story was shortened, otherwise the headache would have been too severe".
One of the companions of Sarmad, one Shah Asadullah, went up to him and
told him
"Do cover your nakedness and utter the creed in full and you will be let
off".
Sarmad looked up, said nothing in reply but uttered the following couplet
:
"A long time since the fame of Mansur became an ancient relic,
I will exhibit with my head the sallow and the cord”.

Sarmad died cheerfully and with complete
resignation like every Armenian that has suffered martyrdom, for his religion,
at the hands of the Mohammedans during the past 1300 years. Prince Dara
Shikoh, the disciple of Sarmad, and the rightful heir to the throne of
the Moguls, was beheaded by the order of his younger brother, that consummate
hypocrite and fanatic Aurungzebe, in the year 1069 A.H. (1659 A.D.) and
two years later, Sarmad shared the fate of his royal pupil, “and from
that day", says a native historian, "the house of Timour declined both
in glory and power".
He was beheaded in 1661 near the Jama MusJid at Delhi, for heresy, in
the midst of an unprecedentedly huge crowd and though not a Mohammedan,
yet he was buried under the steps [172] of the great mosque where his
grave is venerated to this day, by Hindus as well as Mohammedans, who
make offerings of flowers, light candles and burn incense on the saint's
revered grave, after his martyrdom 275 years ago. Sarmad was considered
well inspired and a man of sanctity.
The people of India have not forgotten that the harmless naked saint was
killed by the order of Aurungzebe because he loved Dara Shikoh and championed
his cause.

It is recorded that on the day of
the execution, the Emperor said to the ecclesiastics (fudala) that a man
was not liable to be executed merely for his nudity but that he should
be required to pronounce the Islamic creed. Addressing the saint, they
said "How is it that inspite of your great learning, you only utter the
first half of the Kalima(*5) or creed and not the remaining part"? Sarmad
replied that "I am still absorbed in the negative part, why shall I tell
a lie"? So, according to this version, Sarmad's execution, at the suggestion
of the Emperor was made according to the Islamic Law. So far as can be
seen, the execution, in the opinion of the fanatic Aurungzebe, was necessary
from a religious point of view.
Living the life of a nude mendicant, composing delightful quatrains, some
of which may well be compared with those of Omar Khayyam, yet Sarmad interested
himself in politics by becoming a partisan of Dara Shikoh whom he predicted
to be Shah Jehan's rightful successor. This was gall and wormwood to Aurungzebe.
Sarmad was the center of attraction to the public at Delhi. Dara was condemned
and beheaded because of his apostacy and Sarmad was condemned and killed
for having contributed partly to that apostacy. Deeply as he disliked
his eldest brother Dara, for his politics and leanings towards the tenets
of non-Muslims and mendicants, (majazib), his first act, as soon as he
came to power, was to remove that arch heretic and those who had aided
and abetted him in his apostacy and political activities. Sarmad who was
a Sufi and [173] a mystic philosopher was a great Persian scholar and
had read science and metaphysics with such well known and distinguished
scholars as Mulla Sadr-ud-din Shirazi, Mirza Abul Qasim Fandarsaki and
other eminent scholars of the time.
Sarmad was so filled with divine love that to him the king, the judge,
the executioner, the whole universe, including himself, were the same.
The soul itself and the universe were merged into Divinity. He had no
consciousness of himself.

The following letter which Prince
Dara Shikoh addressed to Sarmad shows the high regard the royal pupil
had for his saintly master:
My Pir and Preceptor—
Everyday I resolve to pay my respects to you. It remains unaccomplished.
If I be I, wherefore is my intention of no account? If I be not—what is
my fault? Though the murder of Imam Hossain was the will of God: Who is
(then) Yazid between (them). If it is not the Divine Will, then what is
the meaning of "God does whatever He wills and commands whatever He intends”?
The most excellent prophet used to go to fight the unbelievers, defeat
was inflicted on the army of Islam. The exoteric scholars say it was an
education in resignation. For the perfect what education was necessary?"
Sarmad's reply to the above epistle consisted of two lines, in verse,
which can be translated thus :—

“My dear—
What we have read, we have forgotten,
Save the discourse of the Friend which we reiterate.”

Sarmad's name stands prominent in
the republic of letters. Daghistani calls him eminent in learning and
Arabic scholarship. His impromptus are very popular in Delhi. His poems
consist mostly of quatrains. In a quatrian(*6) Sarmad says that he follows
Hafez in qazal and Omar Khayyam in rubaiyat.
[174] All the biographical works of the Persian poets that have been written
after him contain appreciative and highly eulogistic notices of Sarmad.
His favorite companion and disciple, Abhai Chand who was the son of a
wealthy Hindoo rajah, according to Nasrabadi, left his father, mother,
home and wealth and adopted the life of a mendicant and took to sitting
on ashes like the Hindoo faqirs. According to the same writer. Abhai Chand,
died soon after Sarmad was beheaded through intense grief.

As we have said, Sarmad was a Sufi
poet and there are verses which he composed that might be construed by
a bigot as being against Islamic religion and on account of such opinion,
he brought on his head the wrath of the Emperor Aurungzebe who was a stem
puritan all his life and a bigoted champion of orthodoxy. His fanaticism,
intolerance and his inordinate zeal for the Mohammedan religion were the
main causes of the downfall of the glorious Mogul Empire in India.
Sarmad who was a theist, taunted the fanatic Aurungzebe with the following
caustic quatrain ; declaring his religious convictions and openly proclaiming,
to the chagrin of the Emperor, that he was not a Mohammedan.
It can be translated thus :—
“O ! King of Kings, I am not a hermit like thee, I am not nude.
I am frenzied, I am distracted, but I am not depressed,
I am an idolater, I am an infidel, I am not of the people of the faith,
I go towards the mosque, but I am not a Muslim.”
No complete collection of the quatrains of Sarmad have been published,
though a few of them have been lithographed [175] at Lahore, Delhi and
Bombay, with biographical notices of the poet in the Urdu language.

According to Dr. Rieu, more than 400
of the quatrains of Sarmad are preserved in MS. in the British Museum.
There is in the well-known Oriental Library of Rampur State a MS. copy
of the Diwan of Sarmad, containing the portrait of the poet, with his
disciple Abhai Chand.
Francois Bernier, M.D., a French physician at the Court of Shah Jehan,
writing of naked Hindu faqi'rs, in his Travels in Hindusthan, refers to
Sarmad as follows :
"I have seen for a long while a very famous one in Delhi, called Sarmet,
who went thus stark naked along the streets, and who at length would rather
suffer his neck to be cut off, than to put on any clothes, what promises
or menaces soever Aurung Zebe might send to him.
" On hearing of Sarmad's death, Bernier wrote as follows:—
"I was for a long time disgusted with a celebrated Fakir, named Sarmet,
who walked in the streets of Delhi as naked as he came to the world. He
despised equally the threats and persuations of Aurungzebe and underwent
at length the punishment of decapitation for his obstinate refusal to
put on his wearing apparel."

Another European, Niccolao Manucci,
in his “Storia do Mogor” (as translated by William Irvine, 1901) writes
:—
Vol. I, p. 223 : Dara held to no religion, when with Mahommedans, he praised
the tenets of Muhammad, when with Jews, the Jewish religion ; in the same
way. when with Hindus. he praised Hinduism. This is why Aurungzebe styled
him a kafir (infidel). At the same time, he had great delight in talking
to the Jesuit fathers on religion, and making them dispute with his learned
Mahommedans, or with Cermad [Sarmad] an atheist much liked by the prince.
This man went always naked, except when he appeared in the presence [176]
of the prince when he contented himself with a piece of cloth at his waist.”
And on p. 384, he says :
"After the death of his brother. Dara, Aurungzib ordered them to bring
to his presence Acermaad [Sarmad], the atheist, to whom Dara had been
devoted, and asked him where was his devoted prince. He replied that he
was then present, 'but you cannot see him for you tyrannize over those
of your own blood; and in order to usurp the Kingdom, you took away the
life of your brothers and did other barbarities. On hearing these words.
Aurungzebe ordered his head to be cut off."

We have seen in the beginning of this
Chapter, on the authority of that well-informed author of the "Oriental
Biographical Dictionary", that Sarmad was an Armenian who like his countrymen,
had come to India for the purposes of trade. which in those days was the
sole occupation of the Armenians in India. And in the prefaces to the
Lahore and the Delhi editions of Sarmad’s quatrains (rubayat) by learned
biographers he is called an Armenian by nationality and a Christian by
religion yet there are some Mohammedan historians and biographers who
say Sarmad was a Jew(*7) from Kashan in Persia and a convert to Islam.

There lived in Calcutta an eminent
Persian scholar and a journalist, the late Syed Agah Jalaluddin-al-Hossaini,
known as Muyyid-al-Islam, who was, by a strange coincidence, .a native
of Kashan, the supposed birthplace of the poet, Sarmad. In order to satisfy
ourselves about the vexed question of the poet s nationality we thought
of seeking his advice in the matter some eight years ago as he was a great
authority on Persian poets, their lives and their works. [177]
We called on the veteran journalist who had unfortunately lost his sight
during the latter years of his life and found him lying on an easy chair,
in the editorial office, dictating an editorial to his scribe for his
favorite Hablul-Malin. After the usual salutations and compliments we
asked the Persian sage about the nationality of Sarmad and the country
he hailed from. He was greatly surprised that we, a countryman of the
poet, should have any doubts in the matter, as Sarmad was known to be
an Armenian from Persia. When we told him that a certain Mohammedan writer
had said in a public lecture that Sarmad was a Jew from Kashan, he was
-highly amused and remarked sarcastically that it was not possible for
a persecuted, miserable, unkempt, unwashed and unlettered Jew of Kashan
to rise to the proud and enviable position of a famous Persian poet.
When we were wishing him good-bye and expressing our thanks for his kind
courtesy, the good old man wished to know the reason of our enquiry about
the poets nationality. We told him that we intended writing an account
of Sarmad in one of the leading Armenian journals and did not wish to
commit ourselves, whereupon he said in an authoritative tone, “go and
write that Muayyid-al-Islam says that Sarmad was an Armenian from Iran"
(Bero benevis khe Muayyid-al-Islam meegooiad khe Sarmad Armanee bood az
Iran).

Sher Khan Lodi, who was a celebrated
poet in the reign of the Emperor Aurungzebe and had ample opportunities
of seeing Sarmad, states, in his Life of poets, called Maratal Khial,
that Hakhim Sarmad was an Armenian from Faranghisthan (Europe) and was
originally engaged in trade when he came out to India.

....

[179]There are some interesting anecdotes,
founded on traditions, about the supernatural powers of Sarmad, prevalent
amongst the people of Delhi to this day, for the truth of which we cannot
vouch. It is said that the Emperor Aurungzebe who was a puritan, had strictly
forbidden the use of bhang as a narcotic because of its deleterious effects.
One of the many spies of the King reported to him that Sarmad, in defiance
of the royal fiat, was addicted to the vice of smoking bhang and that
he kept the drug in an earthen pot near him always wherever he sat. This
was good news for Aurungzebe who was always trying to find fault with
the poet whom he hated with a deadly hatred. He paid a sudden visit to
Sarmad and found the poet lecturing to his disciples. He at once noticed
the earthen pot and asked Sarmad what it contained. The poet suspecting
that the Emperor had been apprised of the contents of the earthen pot,
replied nonchalantly that it contained some milk and on the Emperor pressing
him to show him the milk, Sarmad most unconcernedly uncovered the pot
and lo and behold there was milk in it. His disciples who knew what the
earthen pot contained originally were simply amazed and spread the news
of the miracle performed by their master in converting the harmful bhang
into harmless milk.

There is another anecdote equally
interesting. One day Sarmad was watching a mollah praying earnestly and
with great devotion in the Juma Musjid at Delhi. The poet told his followers
that the mollah's god was under his (Sarmad's) feet. A spy immediately
carried the news to Aurungzebe who was praying in the mosque at the same
time, it being a Friday. The irate Emperor came up to Sarmad and ordered
him immediately to give a satisfactory explanation for his blasphemy.
Sarmad who could never be intimidated by Aurungzebe, told him to send
for the mollah and ask him to confess what he was praying for. The nervous
ecclesiastic, who was trembling in his shoes in the presence of the stern
monarch, nolens volens confessed that he was praying to God to grant him
some money to enable him to get his daughter married.
Sarmad remarked that the mollah had spoken the truth for once in his life
and asked Aurungzebe to get his men to dig [180] the ground where he stood
and on digging the place they found some gold coins buried there.
Sarmad was jubilant over the discovery and told the astonished Emperor
in his usual cynical tone that he was not wrong when he said that the
mollah's god was under his feet.
Aurungzebe was nonplussed and confounded but the news spread with lightening
speed that Sarmad had worked another miracle.
Any wonder then that Aurungzebe hated Sarmad with the deadly hatred of
a fanatic and wished to put an end to the life of an unbeliever who was
looked upon as a saint and a holy man by the public in the early years
of his reign of intolerance and religious persecution.

Whilst these lines were passing through
the press, we were informed by the gallery assistant of the Delhi Fort
Museum that there is an inscription on Sarmad's tombstone.
We reproduce his letter which is as follows :—
"In reply to your enquiry. I beg to inform you that at the head of Sarmad's
grave, there is a masonry pillar with lamp niches and on it has been fixed
an incised slab of stone containing
the following inscription in Persian :—
Which can be translated thus :—
When Shah Sarmad in the reign of Alamgeer
[Aurungzebe] set out on a journey to Paradise.
Poor Akbar said the date,
"This is the grave of Sarmad the Martyr”.

The people in Delhi greatly venerate
the grave of Sarmad and daily burn lights and incenses and sprinkle fresh
roses and flowers on it. The Muslims who come to Delhi from far and near
never miss a visit to the grave of this saint. Besides, the musicians
sing religious songs at the grave of Sarmad nearly every evening and particularly
on Thursdays. A class of [181] illiterate Muslims also celebrate the festival
of Basant near its grave."

Peace to his soul, rest to his ashes
and may the revered memory of the great poet be cherished and kept green,
for ages to be, in the land where he suffered martyrdom for his open defiance
of Islamic rituals and customs.

....

[194] We cannot conclude this chapter
without recording our grateful thanks to Hakim Habibur Rahman, the well-known
Yunani physician of Dacca and a good Persian scholar, for having brought
to our notice, some eight years ago, that the renowned poet SARMAD was
an ARMENIAN. ....

Notes

(*1) [167] Keene is the author of
several learned works on Indian history notably of the Mogul period. His
Turks in India and The Mogul Empire are master-pieces. He has compiled
interesting Guide Books to Delhi and Agra, replete with historical and
topographical information. He was Judge at Agra in 1879.

(*2) [168] According to Mohammedan
historians and biographers it was a Hindu lad of the Bunnia caste, Abhai
Chand by name.

(*3) [169] In a quatrain (rubai) addressed
to his relentless persecutor the Emperor Aurungzebe, Sarmad gives the
reason of his nudity: “He who save you the sovereignty of the world. Gave
me all the causes of anxiety. He covered with a garment those who had
any fault (deformity) To the faultless he gave the robe of nudity."

(*4) [170] For a history of the origin
and the growth of Sufism in Persia, see the note at the end of this Chapter.

(*5) [172] The first part of the Kalima,
which is in Arabic, can be translated thus : "There is no God but God"
(La Ala Allalah) and the second part, "And Mohaaunad is his prophet" (Mohammad
rasool Allah). It was quite natural that Sarmad refused to utter the second
part of the Kalima, not being a Mohammedan.

(*6) [173] Sarmad pays a well-deserved
compliment to Hafez and Khayyam, two of the greatest poets of Persia,
in the following quatrain :— "I have no business with the fancy and thought
of others, In composing a ghazal I adopt the manner of Hafez, But in rubai,
I am a disciple of Khayyam, But do no quaff much of his wine."

(*7) [176] There are no records of
Jews coming to India from Persia for the purposes of trade in the 16th,
17th or 18th centuries. The Sassoons, the Jacobs and other merchant princes
of Bombay came From Baghdad in Mesopotomia, so did the Ezras, the Gubbays
and the Manassehs of Calcutta in the early part of the l9th century.